Kondrashov headed straight for a patient with a spinal injury. The injury surprised him, he said. He had seen images of the charred plane.

"I thought there'd be burns. I frankly didn't expect that many orthopedic injuries," he said.

His patient was bleeding and immobilized by severe pain in his neck and back. Through a Chinese translator, Kondrashov asked the man to move his fingers and toes. They wiggled. He wasn't paralyzed.

Kondrashov discussed his case with the patient's approval, but he didn't want his name to be made public.

S.F. General

At San Francisco General Hospital, Dr. Payal Kohli was in thelab when another doctor burst into the room.

" 'A plane just crashed at SFO' " was all he said," recalled Kohli, a cardiology fellow. "Everyone just dropped everything they were doing."

The hospital shifted immediately into crisis mode. Updates and emergency instructions blared over the hospital public address system. It was "organized chaos," Kohli said.

She prepared mentally and physically for multiple, life-threatening cardiac emergencies that the emergency room might send her way. In crashes like this, she said, cardiac injuries are almost always life-threatening.

"We expected the worst," she said.

The closest trauma center to the crash, S.F. General received the most severely injured passengers. As patients began to stream into the hospital, Kohli filtered through the cardiology patients, mostly those with arrhythmias and possible cardiac contusions.

Many patients were discharged quickly, but some were in critical condition. On Wednesday, three patients remained in critical condition, including one child.

Stanford Hospital

Down the Peninsula, Stanford Hospital also prepared for an onslaught of patients. Dr. Robert Norris expected the preparation would end up little more than a cautious exercise.